Nation imports scarce chicken pox vaccine

Update:
February, 22/2014 - 09:32

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HA NOI (VNS) — Vaccination stations in Ha Noi have run out of chicken pox vaccine and others throughout the country may soon run out, the director of the Ha Noi Preventive Medicine Centre, Nguyen Nhat Cam, has said.

This has led to the Drug Administration of Viet Nam giving approval for the Company for Vaccine and Biological Production No 1 to import 77,600 doses of Varicella Vaccine-Gcc.

"The second dose of the vaccine should be administered at least one month after the first dose, but there was no regulations about the maximum period between the two doses.

"This means that if children have already been given the first dose, their parents can feel secure that they have 80 per cent protection," said Cam.

Children who do not receive any dose face a high risk of being hit by the disease.

Children's personal things, such as bath towels, clothes and toys, must be clean. If children have a high temperature, runny nose, sore throat and rashes on their bodies, they should be checked at hospital, Cam added.

Tran Dac Phu, director of the Ministry of Health's Preventive Medicine Department, said chicken-pox spread via the respiratory system like measles, but did not have such a serious after-effect. The first symptom of the disease were body rashes.

Children should receive vaccine against chicken-pox before they were one-year old. Those who have already had the disease by this time do not need to receive the vaccine, he said.

Viet Nam does not produce chicken-pox vaccine, which is imported from Belgium and France at about VND400,000 (US$19) per dose. — VNS